Paes to set up tennis academy in Bengal

Kolkata, May 23 (UNI) Leander Paes will set up a tennis academy in the city as the West Bengal Government today assured him of ten acres of land for this purpose.

Announcing his plan for setting up Leander Paes Tennis Academy at Eastern Bypass in cooperation with the state government and Bengal Tennis Association, Paes told newsmen here tonight that the academy will have all modern facilities to groom local talents.

He had called on state Sports Minister Subhash Chakbraborty, who assured him of the government's fullest cooperation for eastablishing a world class tennis academy in the city.

Paes said Mr Chakravarty was keen on having world class tennis academy in the city.

Mr Chakravarty said, '' Since his roots are in the city and parents live here, he has decided to devote his best time to the development of tennis in West Bengal. '' Paes said the Bengal Tennis Assocation will hold a week-long tournament of ''legends'' from November 25 in which Pat Cash, Mats Willander, Martina Navratilova, Martina Hingis, Aranta Sanchez and others would feature in the tournament.

To a question, Paes said Sourav Ganguly was the best cricket captain as he had been watching him since 1991.

He said, '' Dada is a true champion. Dada is also hard working and good person, '' and refused to compare himself with Ganguly on captaincy.

Paes also congratulated Amrita Mukherjee for her winning the Asian (U14) crown played at Pune. The city girl and product of BTA beat top seed Parminder Kaur 6/1,2/6,6/3 in a closely fought contest.

Paes said Amrita was Indian to win the Asian championship.

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